Christ of Saint John of the Cross is a limited edition hand signed serigraphNumbered 265 out of an edition of 350The number on the piece more exactly is CCLXV/CCCLThe image measures 14 x 23 inches and framed the piece is 28 x 38 inches

By far the most popular of all Dali’s religious works is his Christ of Saint John of the Cross,whose figure dominates the Bay of Port Lligat. The painting was inspired by a drawing,preserved in the Convent of the Incarnation in Avila, Spain, and done by Saint John of theCross himself after he had seen this vision of Christ during ecstasy. The people beside theboat are derived from a picture by Le Nain and from drawing by Velázquez for The Surrenderof Breda. At the bottom of his studies for the Christ, Dali wrote: "In the first place, in 1950, I had a ‘cosmic dream’ in which I saw this image in color and which in my dream represented the ‘nucleus of the atom’. This nucleus later took on a metaphysical sense; I considered it ‘thevery unity of the universe’, the Christ ! In the second place, when thanks to the instructions of Father Bruno, a Carmelite, I saw the Christ drawn by Saint John of the Cross, I worked out geometrically a triangle and a circle, which ‘aesthetically’ summarized all my previousexperiments, and I inscribed my Christ in this triangle." This work was regarded as banal byan important art critic when it was first exhibited in London. Nevertheless, several years later,it was slashed by a fanatic while was hanging in the Glasgow Museum, proof of its astonishing effect on people. Dali relates that, when he was finishing the picture at the end of autumn in 1951, it was so cold in the house in Port Lligat that Gala abruptly decided to have central heating installed. He remembers the moments of terror through which he then lived, fearing for his canvas on which the paint was still wet, with all the dust stirred up by the workmen: "We toolit from the studio to the bedroom so that I could continue to paint, covered with white sheetwhich dare not touch the surface of the oil. I said that I didn’t believe I could do my Christ againif any accident were to befall it. It was true ceremonial anguish. In ten days the central heatingwas installed and I was able to finish the picture in order to take it to London, where it wasshown for the first time at the Lefevre Gallery." When it was at the Biennial of Art in Madrid,along with other works of the painter, General Franco asked that two of the oils of the masterof Figueras be brought to the palace of El Prado - Basket of Bread and Christ of Saint John ofthe Cross.